Jack Chalker - Shadow of the Well of Souls

“There are so many spies and agencies out there that it’s impossible to keep them from infiltrating one ship or another on the two ends,” Zitz told her. “What is possible is, since not even the captain knows if he’s the one until he passes the pickup point, we control access to the goods. They pick up; they transfer to one of a number of similar vessels. What does the spy report when he, she, or it finally makes port? And most of the next ports are nontech hexes, too, by design. My crew stays with me, so I know them all. Our rendezvous ship even now does not know it will be the one, so there’s no rumors or leaks from its crew. When we do the transfer, same rules applying, they will take it on and proceed immediately to a point offshore in a nontech or semitech hex and transfer it again, being met by crews who pick the position themselves, then proceed into port on schedule. By the time anyone aboard can get the word out, the cargo and pickup people are long gone. As soon as I make the transfer, I destroy the grid maps. My counterparts will eventually intersect the pickup freighter back there, by the way, see that there is no coded sign that anything is to be picked up, and proceed on as if they had picked up something anyway.”

“So this is your point of maximum vulnerability,” she noted. “You have the cargo and maps aboard.”

“True, but for all of that we have ways of dropping the cargo even under pursuit. The captain only needs to remember one grid position and the code number of the grid map no matter where along the route we might be forced to drop it. We would not then bring it in, but once he transferred the grid location and grid code upon making port, someone else eventually would.”

“Sounds almost foolproof.”

“It’s very good,” he admitted. “I think it might not be improved upon. It is, however, still a risky business, particularly in high-tech water hexes like Kzuco. We try and stay out of them as much as possible, but it’s not possible on this run. That makes the money much better, but the risks are far greater. That’s why we’re running the short side of Kzuco along the Awbri coast. Awbri’s nontech, not the best vantage point, and once we’re across the border into Dlubine, we’re back in semitech and safer. From that point we can remain in non- and semitech water hexes. I do worry about Dlubine, but not as much as here.”

“Dlubine has local conditions that create problems?”

“Several. For one thing, it’s crawling with patrols, sandwiched between a high-tech land and a high-tech water hex and with a lot of islands with small harbors and hidden coves. Also, in Dlubine it’s easier to run by day than by night. You’ll see what I mean the first night we’re there. The water’s lit up like a high-tech city, making it easy to spot you. Easier by day, yes, but murder on us.”

“Huh?”

“You can almost make soup with the water, it’s that warm, and the air temperature in the middle of the day is close to lethal for many life-forms. It averages more than half the point to boiling. Even the islands seem like water kettles. Still, it is a lot of sea to find us in, and we do it all the time. Each hex has its problems, so I don’t want to minimize any dangers, but we are used to them. You are not.”

She nodded. “We’ll stay out of your way. If it comes to a flight, though, you well know I have no stake in being arrested and returned to Gekir.”

“Yes. You understand, though, that none of you can be allowed to leave this vessel until after the transfer has taken place and we are well away.”

“We understand,” she assured him. She did not press him on the nature of the cargo; in truth, she already knew what at least some of it was just from overheard conversations among the crew. It was a drug, an extremely addictive drug, that worked on a large variety of warm-blooded creatures. Called by many names in many hexes, it was apparently some kind of deep underwater fungal growth. Alive, one could actually eat it without harm, although it supposedly had a terrible taste. Out of the water, though, it died in minutes and dried out quickly, causing its natural internal fluids to undergo a chemical change, crystallize, and become a very sweet and addicting drug that could be eaten, injected, or who knew what else? Tolerances varied, but apparently for some races one ingestion could be enough to hook a user.

Lori had come up to get some night air, finding it difficult to sleep below, and had been listening to the conversation. When it was over and Mavra had moved away toward the rail to stare out at the black sea, he went over and stood beside her.

He’d found this business with the Runner both disgusting and unpleasantly familiar. “It’s the same here as back on Earth,” he growled. “It’s as if there’s no way and nowhere to escape drugs and the predators who sell them.”

“The universe is composed of predators and prey,” Mavra responded, not sounding cynical but rather as if she were reciting the obvious. “Everyone is one or the other, sometimes both in a lifetime.”

Lori’s realization that this was a ship in that sort of business and that all the crew were the same sort of creatures as the ones who ran and guarded Don Francisco Campos’s jungle operation, which now seemed not merely a million light-years but also a million real years away. He couldn’t help but wonder if Juan Campos hadn’t already found his niche in this sort of operation here. It was a natural for him.

He often wondered what had become of Campos. How he’d like to meet the little weasel now, not rat to woman but rat to man. They said that when a sexual change was done, nine out of ten times it was to a female, to which poor Alowi and Tony, too, attested. He’d often thought how he’d love to discover that Juan Campos had become an Erdomese female. It would be real justice, but while Mavra said that the Well was sometimes perceived to have a sense of humor even though it shouldn’t and theoretically couldn’t, both Julian and Tony were proof that there wasn’t a whole lot of justice as he would think of it built into the system. The bastard was probably nine feet tall with four arms and sharp teeth and more rotten than ever as befitted his personality.

He still wondered about Campos, and not just him. Where was poor Gus, for example? Had he even survived the transfer and transformation? He’d been such a gentle, quiet soul, it was hard to see him outside his element, his cameras and video equipment and other high-tech toys.

He also wondered about Terry quite often. What was she doing now? Still back there with the People in that rain forest? He knew when she’d decided to be the diversion that she would get the worst of it. Such a bright, educated career woman, highly competent, courageous… There were few superlatives for Terry that he didn’t think she deserved. To be shut off for good in the jungle would be intolerable to her, he was convinced. But to emerge, tattooed all over, with bone jewelry threaded through her ears and nose… She’d be a freak. A news story herself for a while, then just a freak. There was no way she could ever lead a normal life like that, and the amount of removal and the cosmetic surgery on her beautiful brown skin would give her a choice between being a painted freak or looking like a burn victim. What kind of a life could she have like that ?

In the end, she’d probably stay in the jungle, perhaps leaving the People and joining a true tribe but remaining anonymous otherwise, or she’d find a convent, become a nun, and remain cloistered for life. Damn it, it wasn’t fair! Terry would have loved this place no matter what she wound up as!